


A Fever and a Beaker and a Shot in the Dark

by inkjunket, J (j_writes)



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Audio Book, Audio Format: M4B, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Community: pod-together, F/F, N Things, Podfic, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 30-45 Minutes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-30
Updated: 2012-08-30
Packaged: 2017-11-10 22:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/471435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkjunket/pseuds/inkjunket, https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_writes/pseuds/J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(10 fights Bryce Banner never got into, and one she decided not to avoid)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fever and a Beaker and a Shot in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> girl!Bruce. written for Pod_Together by Jai in collaboration with Inkjunket. (warning for brief mention of childhood abuse.) cover art by Jai.
> 
>  **Duration:** 35:05 minutes  
>  **Size:** 32.3 MB (mp3), 16.9 MB (m4b)  
> 

  


**Download:** [MP3](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2012/A-A%20Fever%20and%20a%20Beaker%20and%20a%20Shot%20in%20the%20Dark.mp3) // [M4B](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2012/A-A%20Fever%20and%20a%20Beaker%20and%20a%20Shot%20in%20the%20Dark%20by%20inkjunket%20&%20Jai.m4b)  
**Alternate download:** [MP3](https://www.box.com/s/ce5df7cea9473da1810c) // [M4B](https://www.box.com/s/a7dbfa182ddf5828457a)

  


Somewhere along the line, Bryce started keeping a list of things she learned.

She filled one notebook, then another, and started filing them carefully on her bookshelf, numbering each one as she finished it and cataloguing its contents with cross-referenced lists that she stapled into the front of them. There were facts about history, politics, mathematics, pop culture, literature, and eventually she started keeping a separate file for science, since that made up a good 80% of the books she'd take out of the library. 

She learned how to cook – in theory – and how to fix a car – although she'd never looked under the hood of one – and she learned the practical mechanics of how to win any fight she ever got into. She found herself learning exactly why she should never try to put that one into practice as well, but that wasn't a lesson she got from any book.

Eventually, as she got older, she stopped keeping track of the things she had figured out, and started a list instead of the things she had left to learn. It seemed more practical.  
______________

"I'm hearing rumors, Dr. Banner."

She sighed minutely. "I never took you for someone who put much stock in what people are saying, Dr. Selvig," she replied, turning to meet the familiar concerned expression he was leveling at her. "Or have things changed since I saw you last?"

"A great many things have changed," he said seriously. "This project you're working on...it isn't 1942 anymore, Bryce."

"Good thing, too," she replied. "Seeing as how I probably wouldn't even be able to be involved if it was."

"What are you hoping to gain from all this?" he asked. "Even if you do find it, the key to repeating the initial experiments, the right combination of factors to make it all happen again, who are you to say the world is ready for another superhero?"

Bryce sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose under her glasses. "That's not the only desired outcome. It's more complicated than that," she said tiredly. It was a discussion she'd had too many times with too many people who should know better. 

Selvig looked at her steadily. "I hear your funding is running low, Bryce. I hear…a lot of things, none of them good. Tell me you have a plan," he said, "to end this if the time comes."

"I have a plan." She met his eyes steadily. "I always have a plan."

The corner of his mouth curved up. "Tell me it's not a foolish plan."

She smiled back. "You know I can't do that, Erik." She leaned to clap a hand to his arm. "There was a time when you trusted me, remember?"

"I do. But you never lost the misconception that everything can be quantified."

"Everything can," she replied, "we just don't know all the mechanisms yet."

He looked at her searchingly. "I would offer my help – " he began.

"But you know there's not a chance in a million years I'd take you up on it," she finished for him, pulling back. "Plus, there's your own work to think of." She looked around the floor of the convention hall. "It's the only reason I decided to subject myself to this circus, you know. I'm looking forward to your talk."

"Not as much as I look forward to yours, someday," he admitted.

"Someday," she agreed. "It's going to be one hell of a presentation, I'll give you that."

"I hope I live to see it."

"I hope we both do." She made herself smile as she walked away from him, and only let it fade when she was out the door on the far end of the room.  
______________

"I'll make the decision easy for you, Doctor," Fury had said, standing in the doorway to her cell. "You don't have one. You run, we find you. You hide, we drag you out into the light."

She'd been relocated three more times before the next real conversation took place, with a guy sent by Fury who looked like he'd spent his entire career doing exactly this – looking across conference tables at someone who could rip him to tiny pieces. "I'm Agent Coulson," he said, "and I'm here to talk to you about your options." He crossed his hands on the table between them and looked at her steadily.

She returned the look. "I wasn't under the impression that I had any."

"That's essentially what I'm here to tell you, yes."

She looked around at the walls of the room. "How many men do you think you'd lose," she asked conversationally, "if I decided that cooperation wasn't in my best interests?"

"Some," he replied.

"How many is Fury willing to lose?"

"This isn't a negotiation, Dr. Banner."

"No," she agreed. "It's not. I will walk out of here, Agent Coulson. Through your walls or around them, at this point it doesn't actually make that much difference to me."

"If we wanted to hold you, doctor, we'd have left you in the hands of the military."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "So you're what, letting me go?"

"More or less. As a gesture of good faith."

"In return for...?"

He shrugged. "You're on call. If we need you, you come in."

"And if you can't find me?"

"We will." There was a careless confidence to the assertion that sent a chill down Bryce's spine.

"What if I decide I don't want to play anymore?"

Coulson looked at her levelly. "Nick Fury is choosing to trust you," he said. 

"Trust," she repeated, and managed to keep herself from laughing bitterly. "That's a word that doesn't get applied to me too often these days."

"It's not one that gets applied to Director Fury that often either," he told her. "We don't think that you want to go through our walls, or our people. You can prove us wrong, if you like." He sat back in his chair, like an invitation, and she held very still. "I didn't think so." He pushed back and stood. "We're not your enemy, Dr. Banner."

"You're just not sure that I'm not going to become yours," she finished.

He shrugged. "Something like that. We'll be in touch."

He left her sitting alone in the room, the door swinging open behind him.  
______________

She called from a payphone, in the rain, and tried to keep from feeling like her life had become a cliché of itself.

"Where are you going?" Betty's voice was low and quiet on the other end of the line, and Bryce tipped her head back against the wall, closing her eyes and imagining Betty sitting up in bed, blinking and sleep-rumpled. 

"I don't know," she lied.

"Liar." She could hear the almost-smile in the word. "I know you wouldn't tell me anyway."

"Can't," Bryce corrected her.

"Could," Betty replied. "Won't."

Bryce sighed and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "I need to not be around people for a while, Betty."

"I know."

She began to wonder if she'd ever be able to picture Betty again without seeing the expression in her eyes the last time she'd seen her, trying so hard not to show her fear. "Are you…" she paused. "How are you?"

"I'm fine." There was a pause. "I'll be fine." Bryce winced. "Will you?"

"I don't know," she replied truthfully.

Betty was silent for a long time, on the other end of the line. "Good luck," she said finally, sounding like she meant it. 

"Thanks."

"Will you call?"

Bryce opened her mouth to say _I don't know,_ then shut it again. "Probably not," she replied instead.

She could feel herself changing as she hung up, and for the first time, she didn't try to stop it.  
______________

She was in Pakistan when she noticed for the first time, and convinced herself it was nothing. She woke with scrapes and bruises, and it took her a day and a half to realize that it was odd, that she hadn't seen a mark on herself since the accident.

It took her another two months and four and a half transformations – the last one being the first time she managed to halt the progression successfully – before it started to make sense, and another year of experimentation before she finally believed it in any concrete way. 

"You're not immortal, Banner," she said to her reflection in the mirror, reaching up to touch the thin slice above her eyebrow that was just beginning to scab over. She had long since forgotten how to tell the difference between relief and disappointment, so she laughed until she cried, and sat there on the floor of her bathroom feeling numb for some indeterminate amount of time.

Three weeks later, she started studying medicine in earnest again because it was necessary, and she had a sudden need to feel like that was a word that still applied to her.  
______________

It wasn't the first time she'd found herself looking down the barrel of a gun, and she was sure it wouldn't be the last.

"I'm sorry," she said, schooling her face into her most disarming expression. "That was mean."

She carefully filed away the memory of what Natasha Romanoff looked like when she was backing down from a fight.  
______________

The brick was refreshingly cool against her back as she leaned against it, lighting a cigarette and tipping her head back to watch the smoke curl up towards the shattered buildings above her. "You should come home with me," Tony said from the doorway. She didn't look in his direction as he crossed to her, and when his arm draped heavily across her shoulders, she wasn't sure whether or not it was a function of the light buzz she had going that she didn't duck away from him. 

"I'm not that kind of girl, Tony," she told him instead, and felt rather than heard him laugh against her neck.

"The kind of girl who will actually appreciate the years and effort I have put into building my labs? Because I was under the impression that you were, and if you tell me I'm wrong, you're basically going to break my heart."

"Haven't you done a pretty good job of that already?" Bryce pointed out, reaching to tap at the faint light of the arc reactor that showed under his shirt. His eyes followed her finger and held as she hesitated touching the warm glass, and she flinched, pulling back. "Sorry." 

Tony was silent for a long moment before looking up at her through his eyelashes. "You can," he said simply.

Her fingers curled into fists to keep from reaching out again. "No," she said, "I can't." There was a very small list of things that could get her to consider staying in New York, and it appeared that Tony was willing to exploit every last one of them.

"You're not going to break it." Tony paused. "Or me."

"I could."

"You could," he agreed. "But you won't." He leaned back against the brick wall behind them and reached to take the cigarette from her hand and steal a drag. "These are bad for you, you know," he said with just the hint of a smile as he passed it back.

"It's pretty low on the list of things I do that are hazardous to my health these days," Bryce replied dryly. "I think I'll be all right." She dropped the cigarette and stubbed it out with her shoe. "Anyway, I quit."

"Just now?" Tony asked.

"Four years ago."

He grinned. "We're driving you to pick up bad habits again?"

"So many of them."

He chuckled, then tilted to bump their shoulders together. "You should stay," he said seriously, with none of the teasing that had come across the first time.

She shook her head. "I get that Fury's determined to have someone keeping an eye on me - " she began, and Tony cut her off with a laugh.

"Are you kidding?" he asked. "If that's what this was about, I'd be putting you on the next plane out of here myself."

She blinked. "What?"

"I think the _last_ thing Fury wants is the two of us holed up in a lab together for the foreseeable future." Tony's smile was wicked. 

Bryce stifled a sigh. "I'm not staying here so you can stick it to Fury, Tony."

"Then stay here for the state of the art lab I'm gonna build you, and access to JARVIS and the arc reactor, and the complete lack of military presence anywhere on my property without my permission." He paused. "Well, except for Rhodey, but he doesn't count. You'll like him. Sticking it to Fury is just a bonus."

"And if I rip your tower to shreds again?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

He shrugged. "We rebuild," he said.

"We rebuild," she repeated, laughing quietly and shaking her head. "Just like that."

"Just like that," he agreed.  
_______________

Natasha tossed a bag at her chest. "These are yours."

Bryce raised her eyebrows and peeked inside. "I already have workout clothes," she pointed out.

"No, you have yoga clothes." Natasha gave her a look full of judgment. "That's not the same thing."

"That's pretty much all the working out I do," Bryce pointed out, and Natasha nodded.

"Exactly," she agreed. "We've decided you need to start training."

"We?"

Natasha shrugged. "Okay, _I_ ," she amended. "We're not always going to be in a position for you to let your other side out."

"It's interesting that you're still under the impression that the position we're in is going to have any bearing on whether or not the lady behind the curtain makes an appearance," Bryce replied. "I appreciate the compliment. I'm not sure it's deserved."

"You're afraid." It wasn't a question.

"No, I just already know how to fight," Bryce said flatly. 

"'Get mad' isn't always going to be your best strategy in any given situation."

Bryce shook her head. "You're not listening. I _know_ how to fight. There is a long list of things I'm willing and able to prove to you, and that's not one of them."

"Prove it on someone else, then. Get Thor in here, or the Captain." Natasha shrugged. "I don't care _who_ you fight. I care that you can."

"Why? I've got my bodyguard to do it for me, whether I want her to or not."

Natasha looked at her steadily. "You have a refractory period," she said mildly. Bryce blinked, startled. "Yes," Natasha continued. "We know about that. You think nobody's noticed, but we have. And if we have..." she let that thought trail off without finishing. "In Belfast, afterwards, you were grazed by a bullet while Tony was carrying you." She reached out and touched the sleeve of Bryce's shirt, her fingers skating over the tender area. "It still hasn't healed."

"It will." It took more control than she cared to admit not to flinch away, pull her arm back from the warm touch of Natasha's fingers.

"It will," Natasha agreed. "This time. And next time? If it's something worse?"

"Then knowing how to throw a few punches to your satisfaction isn't going to change a damn thing." Bryce did pull away at that, ducking out of Natasha's reach and turning for the door.

"You're not bulletproof, Dr. Banner," Natasha said quietly to her retreating back.

"Neither are you, Agent Romanoff," Bryce replied without turning around. "But it's nice of you to worry." She expected some kind of snappy reply, and when she didn't get one, she glanced over her shoulder. Natasha was just standing there, looking at her steadily.

"Someone has to," she said quietly. 

Bryce flinched. "I'm not fighting you, Natasha. Not today. Probably not ever."

"Probably?"

Bryce shrugged, hand on the doorknob. "Find me when you're not afraid of me anymore," she said. "Then we'll talk."  
______________

"You need to stop," she said quietly, perching on the arm of the sofa where Clint was sprawled out, half paying attention to the movie playing on the screen opposite him.

"You think so?" he asked, sounding thoughtful, and she felt a brief moment of appreciation that he didn't try to bullshit her into thinking he didn't know what she was talking about. "I thought it was going pretty well, actually."

"She's not a pet, Barton."

"No," he agreed, "I don't really do pets." He tilted his head back so he was looking at her upside down. "You know what I did? Before SHIELD?"

"You killed people." She said it mildly, without any judgment, and he lifted an eyebrow at her.

"Well. Yes. But before that, I was with the circus."

"I know."

"Then you know I've been around my share of danger that can't always be reasoned with."

She gave him a tiny smile. "You can say 'dangerous animals,' Clint. The description fits."

"Maybe, but it's not very accurate. I like accuracy." He met her eyes seriously. "I'm not trying to tame her, Dr. Banner."

"Good," she said flatly. "You can't."

"But if Tony gets to make you into his science project, and Natasha makes you her sparring partner, and the Captain brings you in on strategy - " he shrugged. "That's a lot of things for you to do, and not much going on for her."

Bryce raised her eyebrows. "You think she's _bored_?" 

"I think she could _get_ bored," Clint clarified. "And I don't think any of us want to be around when that happens. Yourself included." He tucked his knees up, sitting up a little straighter. "I'm not interested in training her. I'm interested in _teaching_ her."

"To do what, exactly?"

Clint shrugged. "Aim?" He didn't quite smile, but his eyes crinkled up a little. "It's something I have some knowledge of, and something she's - " he hesitated.

"A little rusty on," Bryce filled in. She sighed and rubbed her temples. "I think it's a bad idea."

"I know. If you tell me to stop, I will."

"Because you know Tony's got cameras on you 97% of the time?" she guessed.

"Mostly, yeah. Also because you're kind of the last person I want to piss off."

They were quiet for a long moment, his eyes drifting back to the TV, until she finally said, "I'm not going to tell you to stop, but only because I don't think you're entirely wrong."

"Just mostly?"

"Just reckless," she corrected.

"An accurate assessment." His smile was quick and sharp and disappeared almost as quickly as it came. "Thank you," he added.

She nodded mutely. She couldn't quite bring herself to respond in kind, not when she was only barely holding back the impulse to fight his plans with every ounce of logic she could gather, but she was pretty sure he understood it anyway when he patted the seat next to him for her to slide off the arm of the couch, and handed her the remote.  
______________

When the elevator doors opened onto Steve's floor for the fourth time, Bryce sighed and decided to take the hint. The front hall was quiet, but she could see a faint flicker of blue glow from the living room, so she took a moment to cast a glare at the elevator doors, and headed in that direction.

"JARVIS is worried about you," she announced. Steve, to his credit, didn't startle at the sight of her, just set his tablet down and frowned at her, then rubbed his eyes.

"That's considerate of him," he said in a tone that she'd take as sardonic on anyone else, and wasn't sure whether or not it was the right word when applied to Steve. He blinked at her owlishly, then reached to turn on the lamp beside the couch. "Why'd he send you?"

"I'm the only one here. Tony's in…" she shrugged. "Tokyo, I think." She eyed the TV, and raised her eyebrows when she recognized the scene. "Moscow?"

"The second time, yeah."

"You're amassing a pretty impressive collection of game tape," she noted. 

"It's useful," he pointed out. "Strategically." He looked up at her. "For instance, I hadn't realized quite how often the Hulk goes to Tony's aid until I started reviewing the parts of our battles that I'm not involved in."

Bryce shrugged. "Tony's a shiny toy."

"Is that how she thinks?" Steve asked. "If it's protection instinct, or jealousy, something we can understand, maybe it could be - " he hesitated. "Directed."

"Your guess is as good as mine, Cap. You have a better memory of anything that happens while I'm - " she waved at the screen - "distracted than I ever will. These videos of yours are probably the highest volume of concrete data that's ever been captured of her. Changing isn't always predictable, and I don't like the idea of living my whole life on camera."

"And yet you moved in with Tony Stark," Steve remarked.

"There were perks." She gave him a wry smile.

He returned it. "Like the computer system," he agreed, then looked sternly at the ceiling. "Even if it does need to learn to mind its own business some of the time."

"He said you disabled him."

"I tried. I doubt I was entirely successful."

Bryce hesitated by the couch until Steve waved her over. "I keep looking through the videos, thinking maybe there are things I'm missing," he said. 

"We're always missing things," she agreed, settling in next to him and pulling her own tablet out of her bag. "This is about the Sydney job," she said, not quite making it a question, and the flinch Steve gave in reply was answer enough. "Clint's fine, Steve."

"This time." His face, when Bryce looked at him, was set determinedly, an expression she hadn't seen since he'd returned from wherever he'd gone after the battle with Loki. "I've lost soldiers before, and it's not an experience I care to repeat."

"Sometimes they're not yours to lose," she said gently, then started flipping through files on her tablet. "Tony said JARVIS was working on maps?" she offered as a change of topic, and Steve brightened visibly.

"He was, yeah – pattern maps, showing each of our routes through particular battle sequences, enemies encountered, maneuvers executed – " his words trailed off, and a second later a file dropped onto Bryce's screen. She settled back into the couch, tucking her knees up, and split her attention between the maps and watching Steve get back to playing video, pausing every so often to make notes for himself.

"Have you looked at these?" She asked eventually, and Steve looked up, blinking.

"Briefly. Find something interesting?"

"Possibly." Bryce flicked the screen and sent a map over to Steve. "This is our first fight, downtown. Pretty disorganized, kind of all over the place. Now watch. Miami. Calgary. Belfast. Cairo. Queens." She sent each map towards Steve as she listed them. "Did you see it?" Steve squinted at the last map, zooming in. "Hang on, I'll do it again. Watch my line, and who's near it." She repeated the progression, and Steve looked up, eyebrows lifting slightly. 

"I expected as much from Clint," he said, and Bryce nodded.

"He has a similar view as you," she agreed. "He's trying to work with her, make her more…functional. But Natasha..."

"It appears that she's been making a concerted effort to center her fighting in your vicinity," Steve said. "It's working, too. Have you reviewed the footage from Cairo?" Bryce shook her head. "You should." The screen in front of them flickered briefly as Steve scrolled through videos, finally settling on a grainy overhead street view. Natasha was in the middle of the street, going at one of the robots with what looked like a crowbar while another crept up behind her.

There was a pause, and then her attacker was being flattened into the ground, metal limbs flailing weakly from under a giant green foot before going abruptly still. Natasha barely paused in her skillful dance, but she called out something in the Hulk's direction as she ripped out the robot's throat, her hair whipping out of her face long enough for Bryce to see the brief and dazzling smile there. Steve pressed pause and the screen froze there, Natasha with a handful of sparking cables, looking so much the part of the superhero that it made something in Bryce tighten up until she felt like snapping.

There was the sense of something clicking into place, seeing that brief moment where the mask went down, where the only person meant to see her was the Hulk, who would have no memory of it. "She loves this," she said quietly.

"She's a hell of a dame." The look Steve leveled at her was too knowing, so she turned back to her tablet, avoiding his eyes. She felt him keep looking at her, though, and eventually he ventured, "You could…"

"Steve." She cut him off, her voice low and final. "No, actually, I couldn't."

He shrugged uncomfortably. "I think maybe – "

"This one isn't your call, Cap." She hated how weary her voice sounded as she said it, but it was an old fight, an overdone fight, one she'd had with herself too many times to have it with Steve again.

He seemed to understand, because he nodded carefully, flicked his eyes between Bryce and the screen, then abruptly changed videos, pulling up the footage from Queens instead. "I think we could work with this," he said, briskly returning to the task at hand, and Bryce pulled up the relevant map, overlaying into the corner of the screen so they could look at it in conjunction with the footage. "I think Tony's already started intentionally funneling threats your way when he has the chance. If we could count on Widow being in the same vicinity most of the time, it opens up a whole mess of possibilities for ground combat – or even ground to air, if the big lady's up for it…" he trailed off and reached for his sketchpad. Bryce smiled to herself, watching him set aside the tablet in favor of a pen and paper, propping the pad on his knees and muttering to himself as he began to sketch out formations.

She quietly pulled up another video on her screen, and as she watched Natasha scale up over her back to a rooftop, she found herself wishing for the first time that the Hulk retained any memories at all.  
______________

Once JARVIS's projections mapped it out for her, Bryce couldn't help starting to notice the pattern everywhere, Natasha going out of her way to be in Bryce's space in a way that she didn't with anyone else. She and Clint were indefinably comfortable together, but the majority of the time it was Clint settling down next to her on the couch, leaning over to whisper to her in a meeting. With Bryce, once she noticed it and started keeping track, it didn’t take long to realize it was deliberate, a careful examination of their daily routines that led to them circling together closer and more often than they used to, Natasha emerging from the kitchen as Bryce went in, Bryce collapsing onto a couch on one of the main levels to find Natasha already curled up there with a book, Natasha hovering in the observation room above the range as Bryce narrowed her eyes at a target and pulled the trigger.

"Clint get you in there?" Natasha asked one afternoon, appearing in the doorway to Bryce's office as she settled back into her chair.

She looked up and shook her head. "Hill," she said succinctly, and Natasha raised an eyebrow. “It’s relaxing, oddly enough.”

“Not so odd,” Natasha replied. “You’re improving.”

"You’ve been watching." Bryce meant to ask, but it came out more like a statement. Natasha seemed to consider it like a question anyway.

"I'm not afraid of you," she said finally.

Bryce blinked. "Well, that's your first mistake, right there," she replied mildly, reaching to take off her glasses.

"I'm not,” Natasha repeated, like she thought saying it again might be more convincing, “afraid of you." 

Bryce looked at her for a long moment, then said carefully, "You need to be."

Natasha hovered in the doorway for a second before crossing into the office, settling herself on the corner of Bryce's desk. "You know what your problem is?" she asked.

"You want me to just pick one?" 

"You still think that being the Hulk is your superpower."

Bryce raised an eyebrow. "It's not?"

"No. That’s the easy part.” Bryce let out a quiet snort that Natasha neatly ignored. “The fact that you're _not_ her right now? That you have the ability to make a decision like that? _That's_ why you're here."

"It's not a decision, Natasha,” Bryce told her. “It's a fucking battle."

Natasha was quiet for a long moment, looking down at her. "I know,” she said finally, more meaning packed into the words than Bryce had ever heard from her, and when Bryce looked up to meet her eyes, the expression there was honest and painful for just the briefest of moments.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I guess you do.” She wanted to reach for her, so instead she placed her hands carefully in front of her on the desk, looking down at them, twisting her glasses idly between them. “It’s not the same thing, though, a lack of fear and the ability to condition yourself to be around me anyway. It doesn’t mean the same thing.”

“It does in my experience,” Natasha replied. Bryce was still trying to find the words for how fucked up she found that when Natasha continued. “Or, at least, it has similar results.” She nudged her foot against Bryce’s leg until Bryce looked up. "How long has it been?" 

"Nineteen months," Bryce replied automatically. 

"And?"

"Six days," Bryce replied. "And, I don't know," she glanced at her watch, "maybe eight hours or so? What does it matter?"

Natasha shrugged. "It doesn't. It matters that you know. Nineteen months since you changed without meaning to, and at least the last handful of them have been some of the most stressful you've probably ever had."

"That doesn't mean anything," Bryce replied.

"No?"

Bryce tilted back in her chair. "Not really, no.” She set her glasses carefully on the desk. “Why have you been watching me?”

“Gathering intel,” Natasha replied easily.

“On me, or on her?”

Natasha shrugged. “I can’t do both?"

"You can," Bryce replied, "but I can't imagine there's very much to find out that you can't read in my file."

Natasha laughed quietly. "Who do you think did most of the recon for that file, Banner?"

Bryce felt her face heat up. "Are you kidding me? They didn't have anything better to put you on?"

"At that particular point in time? Nothing they trusted me with, no." She looked down at Bryce, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at her lips. "Maybe I got used to keeping an eye on you."

Bryce let her chair thump back down to the ground, feeling the pieces falling into place. "This is why you wanted to teach me to fight, why you've been utilizing me in battle in ways that no one else has figured out how to yet. Clint's trying to make the Hulk into his pet project, but he's too late, isn't he? You got there a long time ago."

"More or less," Natasha agreed. She scooted closer on the desk, so their legs were touching, and Bryce hesitated just a moment before looking up to meet her eyes. "I'm going to kiss you now," Natasha said conversationally. "I know every objection you have for me, and I could match each one with an objection of my own." She reached out slowly, like she was expecting Bryce to pull away and leave her there alone in the office. Instead, Bryce met her eagerly, leaning upwards, pressing her hands to Natasha's legs and kissing her back, losing herself in the press of their mouths and bodies to each other until Natasha pulled carefully back.

"It's not fair," Bryce said quietly into the space between them, "that you get to know all my objections already, and I only get to guess at yours."

"Oh, you'll figure them out," Natasha told her. "Eventually."

"This is a terrible plan," Bryce said, overruling the part of her that insisted on staying quiet in case she somehow managed to be convincing enough to make Natasha leave.

Natasha looked her over slowly, and Bryce felt her breath catch at how much she wanted to reach for her again. "Possibly," she agreed. "But I basically make a living off risk assessment, and I think I've learned by now how to avoid a bad bargain when I see one."

"There are a million ways this can go wrong," Bryce pointed out, but she was standing as she said it, and when she fit herself into the space between Natasha's legs, they closed around her.

"A million and a half," Natasha agreed, and tangled her fingers into Bryce's hair, pulling her forward. She paused with their lips so close that Bryce could feel the brush of her breath against her skin, and whispered, "Afraid?"

"Always," Bryce replied, and leaned in to kiss her again.


End file.
